Introduction to the special issue: “Urban floras - a contribution to biodiversity and ecosystem services”

Ecosystem‐Service Science and the Way Forward for Conservation

Ecosystem services

Climate change is one of the most significant global challenges of the 21st century, with profound impacts on ecosystem services that sustain human life and well-being. Ecosystem services are the benefits derived from natural systems encompass provisioning, regulating, supporting and cultural services, all of which are crucial for food security, water supply, air quality, disease regulation and cultural identity. However, climate change is altering the dynamics of these services through rising temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, ocean acidification and more frequent extreme weather events. These changes affect biodiversity, ecosystem functioning and the ability of ecosystems to provide essential services. Over time, climate change may have a direct or indirect impact on the range and extents of ecosystem services in terms of both quality and quantity. The ecosystem’s supporting services (soil formation, biomass production, nutrient cycling, atmospheric oxygen production, and the water cycle), provisioning services (Food, drinking water, fabrics, plants, animal species, timber, wood fuel, fodder), regulating services (such as seed dispersal, decomposition, flood control, water management, carbon sequestration, climate regulation, and cross-pollination)all are affected due to climate change. In addition, cultural services such as tourism and leisure, aesthetics, cultural heritage, spiritual and religious values, education, social interactions, and ecotourism all will become less prevalent due to climate change. This write up examines the relationship between climate change and ecosystem services and to discuss the potential adaptation and mitigation strategies for the impacts of climate change on ecosystem services. It also highlights the urgent need for integrated approaches in conservation and policy development to protect both natural ecosystems and human well-being

Ecosystem services at risk: integrating spatiotemporal dynamics of supply and demand to promote long-term provision

Study on the relationship among the urbanization process, ecosystem services and human well-being in an arid region in the context of carbon flow: Taking the Manas river basin as an example

Research in urban floras is a major field of botanical science. By now, flora of many Russian cities has been studied. At the same time the Urals flora of urbanized areas has not practically been the subject of special investigation. This paper is the first to provide a detailed description of the features of the taxonomic structure of the flora of urbanized areas of the Middle Urals within the Sverdlovsk region and to compare it with the parameters of the regional flora of the Sverdlovsk region. Urban floras of 3 cities in the southern part of the Sverdlovsk region have been studied - Yekaterinburg, Krasnoufimsk and Kamensk-Ural, which form a latitudinal catena, covering the Urals region, the mountainous part of the Middle Urals and Trans-Urals. It is shown that the flora of the urbanized areas is characterized by a high level of species richness which increases relative to the area of the city. The taxonomic structure of urban floras, compared with the regional flora, is characterized by a reduced participation of spore plants, due to the extremely poor representation of lycopsids. In the flowering plants the proportion of monocots is reduced and, on the contrary, the proportion of bipartite species is increased. The composition of the leading families of urban floras is typical of the boreal floras of the Holarctic floral kingdom, it is distinguished by the lower rank of the Cyperaceae family and by the rise of the Fabaceae family. Generic spectrum of urban floras is marked by the greater participation of thermophilic genera Atriplex and Chenopodium and very limited representation of boreal genera Hieracium and Taraxacum. Species richness of families and genera in urban floras is markedly lower than in regional boreal flora.

内蒙古草原人类福祉与生态系统服务及其动态变化——以锡林郭勒草原为例

In frequent flood disasters of China, people have abstracted some concepts of hydraulic infrastructure construction and approaches for emergency rescue in floods, which have resulted in the formation of a flood emergency management system based on Chinese national conditions. At the beginning of 2003, the Ministry of Water Resources clearly directed a strategic shift from flood control to flood management to achieve harmony between man and nature. According to Flood Control Law of the People’s Republic of China (Flood Control Law for short), the flood management system in China mainly consists of two parts: the flood control project system management and flood emergency management, the former being the responsibility of water authorities at all levels [1]. According to the rules of Flood Control Law, local governments shall be responsible for the orientation of flood control in their respective jurisdiction, and the water authorities shall be in charge of the daily work of flood control including organization, coordination, monitoring, and guidance. Other related administrative departments shall be responsible for relevant work according to their duties. In flood prevention and control, government chief executive responsibility system is applied with commanding authority unified and departments at all levels being responsible for their respective duty. State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters under the State Council of China is in charge of the guiding and organization of national flood control work. There are also corresponding flood control headquarters at all levels of local government. The structure of flood emergency management is shown in the Fig. 160.1.

The impact of reservoir construction and changes in land use and climate on ecosystem services in a large Mediterranean catchment

Ecosystem services in agriculture: Determining suitability for provision by collective management

Healthy ecosystems provide us with fertile soil, clean water, timber, and food. They reduce the spread of diseases. They protect against flooding. Worldwide, they regulate atmospheric concentrations of oxygen and carbon dioxide. They moderate climate. Without these and other “ecosystem services,” we’d all perish.1 One hallmark of the history of civilization is an ever-increasing exploitation of ecosystem services coupled with substitution of technology for these services, particularly where ecosystems have been exploited beyond their ability to provide.2 Agriculture is a hybrid of exploitation and substitution that enabled people to live in greater, denser populations that drove further exploitation and substitution. Modern plumbing made close quarters far less noxious but led to exploitation of ecosystems’ ability to break down sewage, and to substitution with expensive sewage treatment technologies. Exploitation of fossil fuels led to a slew of modern conveniences, including fishing fleets that are so effective at catching their prey that they threaten fisheries globally.3,4 All this exploitation strained ecosystems, but in the past, when the population was a fraction of what it is now, these strains were local rather than global phenomena. In 2005 the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA),5 a sweeping survey conducted under the auspices of the United Nations, found that approximately 60% of 24 ecosystem services examined were being degraded or used unsustainably.6 “Every year we lose three to five trillion dollars’ worth of natural capital, roughly equivalent to the amount of money we lost in the financial crisis of 2008–2009,” says Dolf de Groot, leader of the Research Program on Integrated Ecosystem Assessment and Management at Wageningen University, the Netherlands. The value of ecosystem services typically goes unaccounted for in business and policy decisions and in market prices. For commercial purposes, if ecosystem services are recognized at all, they are perceived as free goods, like clean air and water. So it’s not surprising that much of the degradation of ecosystems is rooted in what the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), an independent group of U.S. scientists and engineers, describes as “widespread under-appreciation of the importance of environmental capital for human well-being and . . . the absence of the value of its services from the economic balance sheets of producers and consumers.”7 PCAST and other groups are working to build recognition of ecosystem services and, importantly, to valuate them—that is, calculate values for these services to help policy makers and resource managers make rational decisions that factor important environmental and human health outcomes into the bottom line.

近年来生态系统服务与人类福祉研究引起了广泛关注, 研究者开始探讨不同生态系统服务与人类福祉的关系, 并已成为当前生态学领域研究的前沿课题。内蒙古草原生态系统服务与人类福祉的研究对保护内蒙古草原生态环境, 维持草原生态系统持续为人类提供服务的能力, 进一步改善和提高人们的福祉水平有重要意义。草原生态系统服务与人类福祉之间不是线性关系, 人类福祉不会持续增加。随着内蒙古草原生态系统服务变化对人类福祉影响日益加深, 内蒙古草原生态系统服务与人类福祉的研究越来越受到人们的重视,政府部门也相继出台一些政策, 对内蒙古草原生态环境进行恢复和保护。内蒙古草原生态系统服务与人类福祉研究目前存在以下几个问题: (1)缺乏内蒙古草原生态系统服务变化对人类福祉影响的各个方面动态的研究数据; (2)人类福祉的变化对内蒙古草原生态系统服务影响的定性和定量研究; (3)国家政策的持续性。根据以上研究不足, 研究者认为在内蒙古草原生态系统服务与人类福祉研究领域应当关注和加强以下问题: (1)内蒙古草原生态系统服务的形成及波动与人类福祉之间的互动格局; (2)内蒙古草原生态系统服务与人类福祉各个方面明确的相互耦合与互动关系研究; (3)逐步建立相对完善的内蒙古草原人类福祉指标评价体系; (4)政府政策是否能够持续有效。

We live in an urbanizing world. Since 2008, more than half of humanity lives in cities, both large and small, and old and new.[...]

Assessing Ecosystem Services to Identify Conservation Priorities

A Hybrid Modelling Framework for Ecosystem-Based Climate Change Adaptation Using System Dynamics and Bayesian Networks